


I Was Lightning

by jill_ian



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV), The Mighty Boosh RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 07:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11504409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jill_ian/pseuds/jill_ian
Summary: Noel hates thunderstorms.





	I Was Lightning

Julian noticed something was off the third time they had gotten together to try and do a bit of writing.

Noel had come round to his flat earlier that night and now it was well past midnight. Julian was sitting on the couch and Noel was sitting across from him on the floor, cross-legged and slouched in front of the coffee table between them, which he was using as a makeshift desk. Julian could hear the cool rain outside hitting the pavement loudly through the open window on the side of the room.

Julian stood up and started walking towards the kitchen, calling, “I’m gonna put the kettle on. Want some?” behind him.

He turned around long enough to see Noel pick his head up and smile, nodding. “That’d be great.”

He put the kettle on the stove and set two mugs with teabags on the counter next to it. As he waited for it to boil, he looked out the open kitchen window to watch the rainfall. The sound was loud, as the rain had gotten steadily heavier throughout the night. He also realized that he could faintly hear Noel humming to himself from the other room, on top of the sound of him scribbling on the paper in front of him. He was probably doing a rough sketch of one of the characters he could see in his head so that Julian could see, too. He always let Julian in on what he was imagining. 

As the kettle was nearing a boil, the rumble of thunder caught his ear. It didn’t surprise him, what with the rain picking up as it had been doing. When the noise died down, he noticed that other room had become much quieter than it had been a few moments ago. Noel wasn’t humming or drawing anymore. After a few quiet seconds, the scribbling started again, eating away at only a small bit of the sudden silence. The screaming kettle cut through the silence even further.

He poured the steaming water into the mugs and walked back into the other room.

He noticed right away that Noel was sitting up much straighter. His face, which was usually a resting smile, was more of a frown than Julian had ever seen from him before.

“Alright?” Julian asked as he set Noel’s mug down in front of him.

“Oh yeah,” he answered, looking at his cup, “Thanks.”

“Not the tea. Are _you_ alright?”

“Me? I’m great. Never been better.” He took a testing sip of his tea. “Why d’you ask?”

“You seem, I dunno, tense?”

“Who’re you calling tense? I’m looser than a goose.”

“Alright, brandy snap. Whatever you say.”

Noel let out a long laugh and Julian decided to leave it at that. If there were a problem, Noel would tell him. There would be no use in pushing.

It didn’t stop him from noticing the way Noel’s hand tightened on his pencil every time there was a crack of thunder. Or the way his eyes would shoot up every time lightning flashed in the window.

Julian didn’t peg him as the skittish type, so he chalked the whole thing up to reading the situation wrong.

He all but forgot about the thunder thing until one night a few weeks later when they were walking home after a gig. It had gone well enough that they were both pleased. Noel was buzzing and talkative, still high from the excitement of being on stage. Julian felt like they were finally finding their footing on stage together, not that he ever doubted they would. He just knew those things could take some time, but it was taking considerably less time with Noel than he anticipated. It was easier with him. Somehow.

It was drizzling as they walked back toward Noel’s flat, their shoulders brushing every few steps.

“Did you hear that lady in the third row?” Noel asked excitedly.

“Who? The one that was part hyena?”

Noel laughed, “I thought she was gonna lose a lung!”

“You could’ve worn it as a hat,” Julian teased.

“Eh, I’m more of the ‘intestines as a scarf’ sort,” he said, making Julian laugh.

A streak of lightning flashed across the sky and before Julian could figure out what was happening, Noel grabbed onto his arm. His grip was like a vice. Julian looked over and Noel was already looking up at him sheepishly. He knew he could make a crack about it, but there was no use when Noel was clearly a little freaked.

“What? You afraid the rain’s going to mess up your hair?” He settled on instead. The comment had its intended effect when Noel let out a small huff of a laugh. His grip loosened slightly, but he didn’t let go.

“Well, one of us has to maintain an image,” he played.

“I’ll have you know I do have an image.”

“Yeah, _jazzy freak_ is quite the look.”

“Electro tart.”

Noel’s laugh was fuller now, almost back to its usual vibrancy, for which Julian was glad. His hand stayed on Julian’s arm the entire walk back to Noel’s flat.

Noel’s thunder fear was a little more than a theory now, but still, who was he to judge?

Once they started living in the same flat, Julian’s theory became much more concrete.

It would be small things. Noel would shift his way across the couch until they were sitting hip to hip. Or he would hook his foot around Julian’s ankle if they were sitting across from one another. Or he would take Julian’s hand in his lap and start tracing the smooth lines across it.

As time went on, Julian began to sense the pattern, but he never questioned it. He ignored the way his heart would start to beat a bit faster when he would hear thunder ring across the flat. He ignored the anticipation that would creep its way into his chest when the rain would become stronger. He began putting his arm along the back of the couch when Noel would start to scoot closer. Or he would shift himself so that their arms were flush against each other. Or he’d put his hand on Noel’s leg, his thumb rubbing easy circles through the material of his trousers.

If anyone asked, Julian would say he loved thunderstorms, but no one needed to know why.

One night, there was a particularly bad storm raging on outside, the thunder so loud it woke Julian out of a dead sleep. If he closed his eyes, he swore he could feel the ground shake beneath him.

He could only imagine how Noel was faring if the storm had been bad enough to wake Julian up. The thought of Noel alone in his room was almost enough to make him get up to check on him. He knew it might come off as extraneous, but he couldn’t work the worry out of his head once it took root. Julian turned to lay flat on his back.

Before he could even get out of his bed, there was a knock at his door.

“Ju? Are you up?” Noel’s voice was muffled on the other side of the door.

“I’m up, come in,” he called, hoping his voice was loud enough for Noel to hear.

If Julian didn’t know any better, he would have smiled at the sight of him when he opened the door. Noel’s badly highlighted hair was mussed beyond belief from sleep and his pajamas were well wrinkled. Disheveled wasn’t a word Julian would normally use to describe him, but he looked to be a textbook definition of it.

Noel strode across the room and right onto Julian’s bed. Julian shifted over to make more space for him. Noel sat cross-legged facing him.

“Hi,” he said, voice timid.

“Trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah. Did I wake you?” Noel asked, blue eyes wide and worried. His fingers were playing at the sleeve of Julian’s t-shirt.

“No, no,” he assured him, “The storm did.”

“Me too,” Noel said and then went quiet for a few long seconds. “What were you dreaming about?” The question made Julian smile faintly.

“I was out in my garden back home and my mum was making me pull out the weeds like she always did. Except when I’d pull them out, they weren’t weeds, they were fish.”

“Fish?” Julian nodded at the question and he let his eyes drift down to see a smile pulling itself at the corner of Noel’s lips. “What kinds?”

“All different kinds. Some of them were goldfish. Then there were some flounder and a couple bass. I had to get my dad to help me with a particularly big swordfish.”

“I’d pay anything to see you and your dad pull a swordfish out of the ground.”

“Like a poor man’s King Arthur.”

“ _The Swordfish in the Garden_.” 

They were both mid laugh when another roll of thunder crashed outside, this one louder than the last few, and Noel let out a gasp that was barely audible in comparison.

Without even thinking, Julian pulled back the sheets of the spot next to him and gestured with his head. “Come on.”

Noel didn’t question it. He crawled under the covers, laying on his side facing Julian, pulling the covers up to his chin. Julian turned his head to look at him, offering a small smile, but the one Noel gave him in return was so weak that he hesitated to call it a smile at all. He was stiff as a board and Julian thought that if he moved the wrong way, maybe Noel would shatter into a thousand pieces. He had to do something to wipe that look off his face.

Julian stretched his arm out, offering up his side. “C’mere,” he said quietly.

Noel hesitated for half a second, but ultimately moved closer, settling easily into Julian’s side. He rested his head in the crook of Julian’s neck and draped his arm across Julian’s front, his hand holding onto his side. Julian’s outstretched arm was now wrapped around him, his hand rubbing lazy circles onto his back. He felt Noel let out a soft sigh against his neck, making something in his chest clench.

It was a few minutes before either of them spoke again. Julian thought maybe Noel had fallen asleep.

He was surprised when Noel interrupted the quiet with a whisper of, “Thanks, Ju.”

Julian squeezed him gently and whispered back, “You’re welcome,” hoping Noel knew that what he actually meant was, ‘ _Anything for you_.'

When touring brought them to Australia, their trip was surprisingly devoid of bad weather altogether. It hadn’t even so much as rained since their plane landed. That changed one night when Noel went out and Julian decided to stay in. He was feeling especially run down and any other night he would have gone out with Noel, but tonight was one he opted to spend at the hotel.

Julian went to sleep around one in the morning; the rain outside was falling steadily. It reminded him of being back home and of fleeting moments with Noel he wished he could live in forever.

He woke up to the coolness of the sheets next to him being pulled back, which was replaced by the warmth of someone curling around his back. An arm was thrown over him and a hand was splayed flat over his stomach.

“Noel?”

“Hi.” His voice was soft. “Sorry for waking you.”

“That’s alright.” A low rumble outside confirmed what Julian already knew was causing this. “You get caught in the rain?”

“Yeah.” Noel was tracing aimless patterns on his stomach, butterflies spreading beneath his touch. “There’s a lot of it. Thought it was gonna flatten me on the pavement. I might’ve been stuck there forever.” Any other person saying that might have been ridiculous, but Noel sounded so endearingly earnest that Julian believed his fear.

Noel buried his nose in the nape of Julian’s neck. He took several deep breaths in and out, tickling the short hairs there. Julian’s heart was racing.

Julian wished it didn’t take a storm to have Noel close like this, but he would never admit that. Julian was always just the closest person to help and therefore the logical one for Noel to go to whenever he was scared. There was nothing more to it. Noel didn’t need _him_ ; Noel needed _someone_. He would have to live with that.

He would have to live knowing that every day there was a small voice in the back of his mind praying for a thunderstorm.

Noel finally broke one gloomy afternoon.

They were both sitting on the couch in their flat, Noel sideways with his feet in Julian’s lap. He had a notebook in his lap that he was drawing in aimlessly and Julian was watching something on the TV. A sudden crack of lightning lit up the room and before they could even blink, the power was out.

Julian turned his head to look over at Noel, who was already looking at him with wide eyes. He had to think fast before Noel could panic.

“I’ll get a candle or something, yeah?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Noel agreed.

Julian went into the kitchen to try and find one while Noel got up and went towards his room. For what, Julian wasn’t sure, but he didn’t ask. The thunder outside was strong and if he had to guess, the power would probably be out for a while.

When he went back into the living room, Noel was sitting back on the couch, wrapped head to toe in his duvet. Julian couldn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled out. Noel was less than amused.

“What’re you laughing at?” he asked, the question muffled slightly by the duvet.

“You turn into an Eskimo when the power goes out?”

Noel narrowed his eyes through the duvet as Julian lit the candle and placed it on the coffee table in front of them. “I’m hiding.”

“From what, the darkness?” Julian sat back down next to him.

“Maybe. You never know when it’s gonna strike.”

Julian just shook his head and tugged on the duvet. “You keeping that all to yourself or am I allowed in the igloo, too?"

Noel maneuvered the duvet so that it was now covering them both. Julian pulled Noel’s legs into his lap and Noel leaned forward to press his forehead to Julian’s arm. Between the pounding of the rain and the near constant thunder, the flat was far from quiet. Noel let out a long sigh.

“I hate thunderstorms.”

“I’ve noticed.” And at that Noel picked his head up to look at him, almost bewildered.

“What d’you mean you’ve noticed?”

Julian let out a ghost of a laugh. “Was it supposed to be a secret?”

“I suppose,” he murmured, looking down towards Julian’s chest and leaning his cheek on the back of the couch. “How long have you known?”

“Pretty long.”

“Come on. A little more specific.”

“Since one of the first times you came round my flat to write." 

“Oh my God,” he groaned. “That’s embarrassing.”

“It is not.”

“Being afraid of thunder and lightning is for children.”

“Not true,” Julian squeezed his leg, “Everyone’s got their own fears.”

“Yeah?” His eyes shifted back up and Julian nodded. “What’s yours?”

“Spiders.”

“Doesn’t count. Everyone’s afraid of spiders. Give me another.”

“Caterpillars.”

“You’re afraid of caterpillars?”

“They’re hairy and they’re ugly and they don’t do anything and I don’t like it. What purpose do they serve?”

“They turn into butterflies!”

“That isn’t a purpose. That’s an event.”

“Alright. Fair enough,” Noel smiled and paused. “Thanks. Y’know. For never taking the mickey out of me for it.”

“I could never.”

Another loud thunder cracked and Noel practically jumped out of his seat. Julian grabbed Noel’s hand under the duvet. He adjusted his torso slightly to mirror Noel, with his cheek now pressed to the couch, as well. They were practically nose-to-nose.

Noel’s eyes slowly flickered up and down his face a few times. Julian wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.

“Ju?” Noel met his eyes again and for some reason, his breath caught in his throat.

“Hm?”

Before Julian could realize what was happening, Noel’s hand was out of his and on his cheek as he leaned in to press their lips together. He instinctively leaned into the kiss and brought his hand up to twist his fingers into Noel’s hair. 

The thunder paled in comparison to the way their hearts were pounding in their chests. The lightning had nothing on the sparks flying between them.

They were a storm all on their own. 

When the power turned back on an hour later, they were too busy to notice.

Maybe Noel started hating thunderstorms a tiny bit less.

Julian lived for them.  

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first crack at noelian so I really hope you liked it! come hang at holdenduckfield.tumblr.com if you want!


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